Friday, November 29, 2013

Window on Eurasia: Russian Nationalism Can and Must Be Democratic, Krylov Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, November 29 – If Russians
regain their confidence in the future, one that involves more than sitting at
home and watching television as the Putin regime wants them to, their
nationalism can and must be democratic, tolerant, and European, according to
the leader of that country’s unregistered National Democratic Party.

In a
wide-ranging interview with Yuri Solomonov, editor of “NG-Stsenarii, published this
week, Konstantin Krylov discusses the history of Russian nationalism, the ways
in which that movement has been distorted and misunderstood, and why a
successful Russian nationalism must be both democratic and liberal (ng.ru/scenario/2013-11-26/9_nationalism_xxi.html).

Krylov, who graduated from the
philosophy faculty of Moscow State University, says that Russian nationalism “in
the course of the last century arose several times,” and each time it was
suppressed, a pattern that has distorted Russian nationalism and Russians’s
understanding of nationalism.

It arose in the years before the
1917 revolution, he continues, and “even had serious chances for victory during
World War I, when the national revolutions had already swept through Eastern
Europe.” But that positive development was broken off by the Bolsheviks who
viewed Russian nationalism as an enemy.

Indeed, after the revolution, there
is no reason to speak about Russian nationalism at all. Stalin did not support
it despite what many think.The nature
of his regime “excluded” that possibility.“But in the 1960s, at the time of Khrushchev’s thaw, there appeared politically
concerned citizens of liberal views.”

The circles they formed “could not
but be anti-Soviet,” but tragically, it was also “infected by the most serious
form of Russophobia,” not least of all as a result of KGB penetration. Instead
of blaming Marxism and Soviet power for what had gone wrong, these people
blamed the chief victim of the Soviet sytem, the ethnic Russian majority.

That trend in intellectual circles was
reinforced, Krylov says, by the Soviet stte which dealt with Russian dissents “much
more harshly” than it did with liberals.The “only well-known Russian dissent who was officially recognize as a
Russian nationalist and who as a result won world-wide fame was Solzhenitsyn.”

The current generation of Russian
liberals has “completely inherited Russophobia as the foundation of its
ideology. If an individual doesn’t show hatred to Russians, then he simply won’t
be admitted to the ‘liberal’ club.” And Krylov continues, that is especially
the case if he is himself an ethnic Russian.

“As a result, these people strictl
speaking have long ceased to be liberals and dmeocrats if they ever were.” They
oppose genuine elections because the population might not vote their way since “they
are sincerely convinced that the Russian people even two hundred years fom now
will not become European.”

“For them,” Krylov argues, “the
Russians are ‘white Negroes,’ who will never become a civilized people.”

In reality, he continues, “the ‘non-European
nature’ of Russia is explained by banal poverty and national oppression.” When
people say you can’t compare Tuscany and Pskov, Krylov says, he wanted to
respond: “Give Pskov Oblast as much money as Tuscany has and then compare the
two.”

To say this is not to say that ethnic
Russians do not have problems. “Happily, the Russian people is not an invalid.
[Its] situation is better: the people have hands, [but unfortunately] they are
tied up.”What is “surprising,” Krylov
continues, is that having been subject to state oppression “already 100 years, the
people haven’t entirely lost their best qualities.”

The current government of the Russian
Fedeation does not understand this reality, he says.But “the current regime of administration is
approaching its final stage.”At the
strt of the Putin era, “the population was offered some inspiring” if not especially
clever” ideas, “but now there is only one idea left.”

In simplest terms, this idea can be
expressed by the slogan “One must sit at home!” in front of the television tuned
to the First Chanel with a bottle of beer.” That is all the Putin regime offers
Russians now, Krylov says.

To understand where the Russian national
movement is now, he argues, one must understand the history of “the ‘Russian
party’ of Soviet times,” a group that is commonly assumed to have been
nationalist but in fact was simply an effort by the authorities to redirect
protest attitudes that it couldn’t suppress.

That should be obvious, Krylov says, because
“for a Russian nationalist to be a Stalinist” is just as “impossible” as for
Jews to be for Hitler, but the Soviets and the liberals succeeded in presenting
Russian nationalism as exactly that kind of combination, completely ignoring
the fact that “nationalism arises when people begin to distinguish the nation
and the state.”

Krylov argues that Russian
nationalists can and must be democratic because the overwhelming majority of
the country consists of Russians.Supporting a dictatorship is “a breeding ground for aggressive
minorities” or for those who are without hope.Russians who support a dictatorship do so because they want everyone to
live equally badly.

“Russians must be free, rich and
have power in their own country,” Krylov says.And everyone needs to recognize that this does not mean that they will
ignore the rights of minorities. No one benefits from that. Indeed, he concludes,
those Russians who do oppress minorities hurt themselves in the first instance.